Valuables ravaged as fire razes shops in Akure

A section of Akure South Local Government Secretariat, beside Deji’s palace, Akure was Thursday razed down by inferno.

It was learnt that no fewer than 100 lock up shops were ravaged.

Sources said the fire broke out from one of the shop around 1am and spread to other shops.

A victim, Ojo Owoeye said he received a call around 1am that their shops were burning and he immediately rushed to the scene.

Owoeye said the inferno happened as a result of power surge, saying his properties worth over N2.5m were consumed.

A Youth leader in Akure community, Tuyi Adekambi said, “The inferno started around 1am as a result of power surge. The most annoying part of it is that maybe we have functioning fire service in the state; the inferno wouldn’t have got to this extent.

“For almost three hours the fire service couldn’t get to the place of fire incident and it was the services of Airport authority fire brigade service that come to rescue the situation on else the inferno would get to the Deji’s place.

“Government should be in position to purchase vehicles for the fire service for each senatorial district in the state in order to use it for the comfort of the people.

“My advice to the state government is that they should not come here and make empty promises to the affected shop owners.

“Government should purchase fire service vehicles for each senatorial districts and fueling it always in case of any inferno in the state”.

The inferno was said to have been curtailed by officials of the Airport authority fire brigade service.

It was gathered that computer accessories and provision stores were affected in the incident.

The President, Association of Office Documents and Computers, Akure, Mrs Elizabeth Orogun while speaking with reporters described the fire incident as unfortunate and called on the state government to come to their aids.

She said “Over 100 shops were destroyed. Computers, generators, photocopying machine, camera, cloths among other items were destroyed following the inferno.

Mrs. Orogun lamented that they could not salvage anything from the rubbles, saying” no one could tell where the fire started from”.

She said “We learnt that there was light around 12:30am and probably coming later with high voltage which sparked and triggered fire.

“When people around here raise alarm to the fire service, they said they don’t have fuel in their vehicle, we have not less than 100 shops that were destroyed by the fire incident.

“Government should please come to our aids because of our numerous responsibilities as bread winners in our respective families. All our possessions have now been gutted by fire”.